(soft electronic music)
- [Briggs] What is going on, everyone?
Welcome back the World According to Briggs,
and a look at Tampa, Florida.
Tampa sits on Tampa Bay on the west side of the state,
which is the Gulf side of Florida about midway up the coast.
It's the main city in the Tampa Bay Metro area
I guess you could call it,
with St. Petersburg, Clearwater.
I've always felt Tampa's a little underappreciated
as far as Florida cities go.
It is often overshadowed by places like Miami, Orlando,
Fort Lauderdale, and these days, Jacksonville, a little bit.
Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa bay Metro area.
And it's the third most populous city in Florida
after Jacksonville and Miami.
It's the 52nd largest city in the United States.
If you live here, you get warm weather.
You have access to great beaches
and a pretty cool pirate festival every year.
(deep ominous tone)
- [Briggs] Tampa has a long history.
The whole Tampa Bay area was inhabited by indigenous people
for thousands of years before Europeans got here.
And that's based on ceramic findings that they know are
at least 2000 years old.
The actual city of Tampa started off as a military center
during the 19th century with the establishment of Fort Brook
in January of 1824.
It was incorporated into a city in 1887,
following the Civil War.
The number of native Americans had been decreased
across Florida and the Western hemisphere due
to infectious diseases brought from Europe.
So there weren't many left when the Europeans
started to settle the Tampa area.
The indigenous cultures of the Tampa bay area
had collapsed by the early 1600s.
The Spanish were the first Europeans that laid claim
to Florida, and the US bought it
from Spain in 1821 and built forts and trading posts.
Tampa was officially incorporated
as the village of Tampa on January 18th, 1849.
At the time they had about 185 people living there.
(deep ominous tone)
- [Briggs] The population of Tampa has been growing
ever since we bought it from the Spanish.
They've had one decade where they actually
lost a little population, and that was in the 1980 census.
Some decades like the 1960 decade census,
whatever you want to call it, they actually gained 120%.
In 1950, they only had 120,000.
By 1960, they had 274,000 living in the city of Tampa,
not the whole Metro area.
At the 2000 census, there were 303,000 residents in Tampa.
And in the 2020 census, they had 384,000
with the whole Metro area having a little
over 3 million residents.
So it's kind of big and it's kind of popular.
Maybe not so much for the people that are into religion.
A study was done where they ranked the 51 largest cities
in the US by all kinds of categories.
And one of the categories was how often do the residents
attend religious services?
Tampa was second to last.
Only 32% of their population
regularly attends religious service.
Number 51, that absolute dead last was Portland, Oregon
with 28% of their population attending religious services
on the regular.
If you wanna look at the racial makeup of Tampa,
46.3% of the population is white,
Black or African American is 26.2%,
Hispanic or Latino is 23.1%,
Asian is 3.4%, multi race meaning two or more races is 3.2%.
Everyone else is under 1%.
(deep ominous tone)
- [Briggs] In the 1800s, the discovery of phosphate
in the Tampa area brought a lot of people
and brought a rail line.
This rail line, and the phosphorus were key
to turning Tampa into what it is today.
It was really crucial in the development of the area.
And by 1900 Tampa became one of Florida's largest cities.
The rail line was owned by a man named Henry B Plant.
And that rail line helped get the phosphate
out of Tampa and the people into Tampa.
The first tourist to the area actually showed up in 1883.
To this day, tourism is still one of their number one
economic drivers but they also have insurance, finance,
healthcare, technology companies, construction,
maritime industries, all kinds
of good things are happening in Tampa.
Tampa has one of the largest, if not the largest port
in the state of Florida, bringing in over $15 billion a year
to the local economy or to the state's economy.
The biggest employers in the Tampa Metro area
in the city of Tampa are Bay Care Health Systems,
Public Supermarket, HCA West Florida,
Frontier Communications.
That one might not be that accurate right now
because Frontier had to claim bankruptcy like last year,
year before.
I know they went public again in 2021
but they'd hit bankruptcy, so I'm not sure how many people
they employ there anymore, but it's still on the list
as one of their largest employers.
You also have Tampa General Hospital, Walmart,
Florida Hospital, JP Morgan Chase and Company
has a couple five, 6,000,
Moffitt Cancer Center employs over 4,000
and citi, like Citibank employs over 4,000 people.
You also have McDill Air Force Base.
It remains one of the major employers in the area.
I think they have over 15,000 active military living
on that base or in the area.
And of course they have a whole bunch
of civilian contractors that work on the base too.
(deep ominous tone)
- [Briggs] Now we look at neighborhoods.
On this one, usually like to look at probably one
of the best neighborhoods,
and one of the worst neighborhoods.
And I have to give you a disclaimer.
I'm not saying these the absolute worst
or the absolute best.
I'm just going by the livability score.
And livability score includes things
like their housing prices, their crime rate, their schools,
all those things combined give you livability score.
I'm sure a lot of the locals won't agree with this.
I'm going by a stat, okay?
And we also use the actual name of the neighborhood.
A lot of the locals might call it something different
but people watching this like to look things up
like this on Google, or maybe they're talking
to a real estate agent and they have to give the exact name
of the neighborhood that they're looking at.
Like I've said before, I grew up in a neighborhood
called West Torrance.
That was my childhood home.
Come to find out years later, West Torrance
is actually closer to the high school West Torrance.
My neighborhood was actually called Southwood.
And if you wanna look it up
on Google maps or talk to a real estate agent
you're looking for Southwood.
Get it, got it, good.
Let's take a look.
When it comes to great neighborhood hoods in the Tampa area,
there's quite a few to choose from.
I mean, it's right there on the water.
You have potential for a lot of very nice
and expensive neighborhoods, but we're gonna go
with Bayshore Gardens because it has
the highest livability score of 97.
Bayshore Gardens is a smaller neighborhood
with only about 2,000 residents.
Their house is here because it's right on the water.
They vary drastically.
There's a few that I've seen for over $4 million
but most of the good ones right near the water
are gonna be million, million and a half.
You can go inland a little bit, which I'm talking
three or four blocks and find some that are under 600,000.
Those are few and far between,
but they are available for you, if you could find one.
When it comes to their crime rate, they're actually
63% lower than the national average,
and their cost of living is 5% lower
than the national average.
Overall, Florida is pretty easy on the bank account.
I think if Bayshore Gardens was in any other state
like California or Virginia someplace else
with a nice ocean front property,
it'd be a lot more expensive,
but Florida knows how to keep its prices down.
Their schools get rated an A, their housing is an A minus.
Their employment is an A minus.
So they do pretty good.
They have a lot of things to do around there too.
When you look at the other side
of Tampa's neighborhood coin, you have Grant Park.
Grant Park is not the best place to live.
It's not terrible.
Like I've said before, you got other neighborhoods
in the country that are in places like Camden, New Jersey,
east St. Louis that are incredibly dangerous.
This one's not great, but it's not the worst.
The total crime rate in Grant Park is 79% higher
than the national average.
Their employment kind of sucks.
The income per capita is 58% lower than the national average
and their unemployment at the end of 2021 was 116% higher
than the national average.
Those aren't good numbers.
The good news is their cost living is pretty low,
but their schools also get rated really horrible.
Grant Park's livability score is 46.
And if you're looking for them on the map
you're gonna find them Northeast of downtown Tampa.
Grant Park has a few things that normally add
to a neighborhood suckage level.
They have a couple different industrial areas
surrounding the neighborhood, along with interstate 4
running along the Southeast border of the neighborhood.
They also have a good size cemetery to the west
of Grant Park.
There's good news there.
I always try to look at the bright side of things.
So let's say you're hanging out on a street corner
in Grant Park, and you suddenly spring a couple holes.
Your relatives won't have far to go when they
decide to have a ceremony for you
and stick ya in the ground.
See? Thinking positive.
(deep ominous tone)
- [Briggs] When it comes to moving to an area,
there's certain stats people look at for the whole area,
not just a certain neighborhood like their crime stats,
their cost of living, and the typical home price.
Now I'm gonna give those to you right now.
The total crime rate of Tampa is 18% lower
than the national average.
Their violent crime rate is 7% higher
than the national average.
You have a one and 50 chance becoming a victim of a crime
every single year you live in the Tampa area.
The cost living here is 1% lower than the national average,
and it's also 3% lower than the state average.
Housing is 4% lower than the national average,
goods and services are 2% lower than the national average.
That's not bad.
The typical home price in Tampa is $350,000 roughly,
give or take.
It changes every month, but that's what
they say right now.
The median home price is roughly 350,000.
You look around since it's right on the bay,
you could find homes for 5 million all the way down
to $217,000 that are livable.
You probably find something lower like 150,000
but you probably won't wanna live there.
Probably end up in Grant Park, removing plywood
from the windows, and having to throw out your carpet,
realizing that the wood underneath your carpet
needs to be thrown out, and then you finally decide
to bulldoze the place.
(deep ominous tone)
- [Briggs] When it comes to the food, I don't have
a ton of experience with Tampa's food scene
that isn't like a chain restaurant.
The few times I've been there, that's kind of where we ate.
I was with other people and we end up eating at,
you know, IHOP type places, things like that.
But one time I did have a layover
in Tampa because the plane was breaking
on us in midair from Miami to Mobile.
So we landed in the Tampa airport for like two hours.
I asked, "Where's a good place to eat?"
And the guy turned me on to this place called
The Burger Spot.
It's family owned place, over the counter type burger place.
It was great.
One of the best burgers, I'd say one of the top five
burgers I've had in my life.
They have a burger called the glazed one.
It's a bacon cheeseburger
with two Krispy Kreme donuts on it.
I did not eat that.
I'm no heart surgeon, but I can tell you, this thing,
it sounds delicious, but there's no way
it's remotely healthy.
If you're ever at the Tampa airport and you wanna
find this place, you just head east on MLK Boulevard.
And when you see Tampa Street
it's right there on the corner.
It's like 10 miles away.
I think we got there in like 20 minutes.
I bought the cab driver food.
Oh, and while we're eating, the dude looks at me,
stops eating and says, very bluntly,
"Don't think this gets you a free ride back to the airport."
(laughs) I was like, "I didn't even think about it.
But thanks for clearing that up for me."
Good times in Tampa.
Side note, he maybe had five teeth
in his whole head, and that head was sporting
an epic mullet.
Two other places that were recommended
to me were Columbia Restaurant.
That's like Florida's oldest restaurant.
And then there's a place called Burn Steakhouse.
Apparently they make a good steak there.
If you're looking for that one, it's down
by Bayshore Gardens, which we talked about earlier.
As far as Columbia restaurant goes, you could find that
down in Ybor City, which is like the Latin area.
It's like downtown Havana, Cuba.
Nice area though.
You can get some good food over there.
(deep ominous tone)
- [Briggs] Tampa is tourism.
Pretty much the whole Tampa Bay Metro area is tourism.
I mean, that's one of their biggest economic drivers
is people coming there and spending money.
There's a lot of things to do in this city
and its Metro area far beyond their beaches
which are excellent.
They have tons of great places in this area of Florida,
where you can go lay out on a beach and have a good time.
But beyond that, you have Busch gardens.
It's 335 acres of an African themed amusement park
with like thrill rides and exotic animals,
all that good stuff.
You have a water park called Adventure Land.
Tampa has a lot of family friendly activities.
They have a zoo and an aquarium,
the Glacier Children's Museum, big cat rescues there.
There's a Manatee viewing center and a whole bunch
of normal city recreational type parks with tons
of hiking trails.
And they even got a waterworks park for the kids.
Definitely a great place to have a vacation.
(deep ominous tone)
- [Briggs] When it comes to famous people that were born
and possibly raised in Tampa, there's not that many.
A lot of 'em were born in Tampa but moved someplace else
like Mel Tillis.
He's a country Western singer
probably one of the most famous ones ever.
And he was born in Tampa, but his family left
when he was young and moved down to West Palm beach area.
But I will tell you what, they turn out
some baseball players.
They have a ton of professional baseball players
that came from the city of Tampa.
Two of the most famous ones?
Fred McGriff, he was born and raised in Tampa,
played with the Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres forever,
Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Devil Rays,
Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers and finished
out his career in 2004 with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays,
which are now called the Rays.
One of the greatest baseball managers ever,
Tony La Russa is from Tampa.
He was born in Tampa, but he was raised in Ybor City,
which is right next door.
It's a suburb.
He also lived in West Tampa and went
to Jefferson high school in Tampa.
He started off his managing career.
He was a player first, but he started off
his managing career with the White Sox in 1979 to 1986.
He was manager for the athletics and then the Cardinals.
And just last year, 2021, he became the manager
of the White Sox again.
(groovy upbeat music)
- [Briggs] So Tampa in a nutshell is like this.
It's not a bad place to live.
It's not terribly expensive.
The weather is great.
They don't have a terrible amount of crime.
They do have some in some areas, but it's not horrible.
But where their real strength is, is things to do.
And it's a great vacation spot.
Everyone always thinks about Miami
or Orlando to go for a vacation.
Don't overlook Tampa.
It's a solid option.
All right, everyone, that's today's video.
Hope you enjoyed this look at Tampa Bay.
Everybody have a great day.
Be nice to each other.